When did women start feeling like they had to be a mean girl or a bitch in order to get respect, in order to feel fierce? No doubt I’ve worked with and have encountered many successful beeyotches in my time, but the overwhelming majority of fierce sisters I know are generous, relatable, secure, approachable, and genuinely nice. Yeah, these women have their doubts, but they choose to dip their spirit in a pool of confidence. Read more...

THE GOODS is a new section that I’m resurrecting to discuss beauty products, gadgets, style, accessories and home goods.

Two weeks ago shortly after getting settled into my hotel room in Miami, I had the most unsettling revelation. No, they didn’t have bed bugs and yes, they had HBO. I was horrified when I discovered I left my toiletries bag on the edge of my bathtub back at home. Four days without eye cream, Read more...

Whip it, flip it, love it down! The love and appreciation for Black hair seems to be at an all time high and I couldn't be happier. From Willow Smith's exuberantly ecstatic video for her smash "Whip My Hair" to the "I Love My Hair" YouTube sensation from Sesame Street, there's an embrace of cornrows, afro puffs, ponytails, dreadlocks, twists, box braids and press & curls that hasn’t been seen since the "I'm Happy To be Nappy" movement of the 90's and the Black Power Movement of the 60's.
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Last Monday I got into a very interesting discussion about Sophia Stewart– the self-proclaimed “Mother of the Matrix.” She is the woman who claims that The Terminator and The Matrix were both her ideas and that they were stolen by James Cameron and The Wachowski Brothers respectively. Wanting to find out more about her case I did some research on her earlier this year and stumbled upon her court records. I was flabbergasted. Not Read more...

I’ve written about photographer and activist Mfon Essien several times since I first interviewed her back in the fall of 2000. I hung out with her for most of that lovely afternoon in her living room. She was battling breast cancer, but that day there were very few signs of struggle or even weakness. We laughed, sipped tea and talked about what it meant to be sexy. For two young Black women this chat Read more...

“The art of living (and loving) is more like wrestling than dancing, insofar as it stands ready against the accidental and unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.” – Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

When I think of love I think of a force that is all consuming. Beyond all our natural and unnatural senses, LOVE at its best (and worst) strips us, whips us, rocks, knocks and locks us in a powerful space that defines and Read more...

Last weekend while standing in the condiments aisle of Marshall’s looking for an awesome ginger chile sauce, I bumped into an old friend. Eyes kinda puffy, she had been crying. She just lost her dad like a month ago and just found out while looking for a glass canister that her homegrrrl’s father just passed away too. I told her what I knew firsthand: Be gentle with yourself, grieve when you want and know that Read more...

Here in NYC it’s been gloomy and gray for the past two days. Monday’s are hard enough to get motivated for me without rain and dark skies smothering my spirit and zapping my zeal. This morning when my clock radio went off that Eminem/ Rihanna song about love and domestic abuse started playing. Talk about a downer. Before I could press snooze I felt my body sag with blah weariness. By the time I got Read more...

Whoa Nelly, my one-week break from this here cipher turned into six just like that! At the outset I knew I needed a break. Blogging, social networking and the whole idea and notion of being theHotness is a non-stop grind. I have to be online everyday from the minute I step out of bed to the minute I tuck myself back in at night. I have to be in the mix for what seems like Read more...